Even though we do not pass the telemetry build flags (and go out of our way to cripple the baked-in telemetry), Microsoft will still track usage by default.
We do however set the default `telemetry.enableCrashReporter` and `telemetry.enableTelemetry` values to false. You can see those by viewing your VSCodium settings.json and searching for `telemetry`.
The instructions [here](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-disable-telemetry-reporting) and [here](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/supporting/faq#_how-to-disable-crash-reporting) help with explaining and toggling telemetry.
It is also highly recommended that you review all the settings that "use online services" by following [these instructions](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/getstarted/telemetry#_managing-online-services). The `@tag:usesOnlineServices` filter on the settings page will show that by default:
- Extensions auto check for updates and auto install updates
- Searches within the app are sent to an online service for "natural language processing"
- Updates to the app are fetched in the background
These can all be disabled.
__Please note that some extensions send telemetry data to Microsoft as well. We have no control over this and can only recommend removing the extension.__
_(For example the C# extension `ms-vscode.csharp` sends tracking data to Microsoft.)_
Until something more open comes around, we use the Microsoft Marketplace/Extensions in the `product.json` file. Those links are licensed under MIT as per [the comments on this issue.](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode/issues/31168#issuecomment-317319063)
If you use the [code-settings-sync](https://github.com/shanalikhan/code-settings-sync) extension, you may have [an issue](https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/72) installing extensions (via the plugin). Refer to [this workaround](https://github.com/shanalikhan/code-settings-sync/issues/668#issuecomment-462065341) to get it working properly.
The debugger provided with Microsoft's [C# extension](https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode) as well as the (Windows) debugger provided with their [C++ extension](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-cpptools) are very restrictively licensed to only work with the offical Visual Studio Code build. See [this comment in the C# extension repo](https://github.com/OmniSharp/omnisharp-vscode/issues/2491#issuecomment-418811364) and [this comment in the C++ extension repo](https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-cpptools/issues/21#issuecomment-248349017).
A workaround exists to get debugging working in C# projects, by using Samsung's opensource [netcoredbg](https://github.com/Samsung/netcoredbg) package. See [this comment](https://github.com/VSCodium/vscodium/issues/82#issue-409806641) for instructions on how to set that up.
VSCodium (and a freshly cloned copy of vscode built from source) stores its extension files in `~/.vscode-oss`. So if you currently have Visual Studio Code installed, your extensions won't automatically populate. You can reinstall your extensions from the Marketplace in VSCodium, or copy the `extensions` from `~/.vscode/extensions` to `~/.vscode-oss/extensions`.
Visual Studio Code stores its `keybindings.json` and `settings.json` file in the these locations:
You can follow the [Portable Mode instructions](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/portable) from the Visual Studio Code website.
- **Windows** / **Linux** : the instructions can be followed as written.
- **macOS** : portable mode is enabled by the existence of a specially named folder. For Visual Studio Code that folder name is `code-portable-data`. For VSCodium, that folder name is `codium-portable-data`. So to enable portable mode for VSCodium on Mac OS, follow the instructions outlined in the [link above](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/editor/portable), but create a folder named `codium-portable-data` instead of `code-portable-data`.
There is an external Gentoo overlay with a working ebuild to install VSCodium, provided by [@wolviecb](https://github.com/wolviecb/). The overlay can be found [here](https://github.com/wolviecb/overlay).